Sentencing Project

The project has received grants from organizations associated with left-of-center causes. The group has received four grants from the Open Society Foundations, a private grantmaking foundation created and funded by billionaire financier and liberal philanthropist George Soros, and four grants from the MacArthur Foundation, a private grantmaking foundation with a history of giving to left-of-center causes. ^{3 4}

The project is staffed by individuals who have worked for and donated to left-of-center causes, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a left-leaning activist organization; the Proteus Project, a center-left “pass-through” funder and donor-advised fund provider; the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, a private foundation that provides grants primarily to left-of-center activist groups; and the Open Society Foundations. ^{5 6 7 8}

Activities

The Sentencing Project was founded by Malcolm Young in 1986 to provide legal assistance and training for the promotion of alternative criminal sentencing programs. ^{2 1} Since its founding, the organization has expanded its operations to include prison reform research and education efforts on sentencing laws, policies, and practices. ¹

The Sentencing Project advocates on the federal and local levels to reduce the use of incarceration and enact policies that use other methods of criminal justice. ¹ The project opposes extreme sentencing, the restriction of formerly incarcerated peoples’ voting rights, the incarceration of minors in the adult justice system, and racial and ethnic disparities in sentencing. ¹ The group supports ending the presence of police in schools and providing children engaged in criminal behavior with medical or psychological care instead of incarceration as reform measures to the youth justice system. ¹ The project also campaigns for full voting rights for people incarcerated in jail and prison. ¹

The Sentencing Project has advocated for the passage of several prison and sentencing laws, including the Eliminating a Quantifiably Unjust Application of the Law Act to end the distinction between crack and powder cocaine offenses, the Democracy Restoration Act to expand voting rights to incarcerated people during and after the completion of their sentence, and jail-based voting. ^{9 10}

The Sentencing Project hosts the Second Look Network, an activism coalition of 70 sentence reform groups and more than 150 attorneys that works to resentence prisoners with “lengthy or unfair sentences, beyond the context of wrongful conviction.” ¹¹ The project also partners with 76 national level and 220 state level organizations to advocate for criminal justice reform. ¹² The Sentencing Project’s research and education efforts are funded and published by the Open Society Foundations, a partner of The Sentencing Project and private grantmaking foundation created and funded by billionaire financier and liberal philanthropist George Soros. ¹³

According to the Washington Examiner, in July 2021 the Biden White House hosted a Zoom call with representatives of the Sentencing Project along with several other left-of-center voter advocacy groups to discuss increasing voter registration within the United States. Topics discussed on the call included “registering illegal immigrants and integrating voter registration into public housing as a requirement under federal law.” ¹⁴ Notes on the meeting were provided by the Washington Examiner through the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA) and the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project. Other groups involved in the call included the Open Society Policy Center, End Citizens United, Democracy Fund, Demos, and the League of Women Voters. ¹⁴

Funding

From 2018 to 2020, The Sentencing Project received four grants totaling $1.25 million from Open Society Foundations. ³ The project also received four grants from 1996 to 2010 totaling $785,000 from the MacArthur Foundation, a private grantmaking foundation with a history of giving to left-of-center causes. ⁴

In 2021, the project gave $110,000 in grants to left-of-center prison and education advocacy organizations, including Safe and Just Michigan and the Common Cause Education Fund. ¹

People

Malcolm Young is the founder of The Sentencing Project and worked as the organization’s executive director from 1996 until 2005. ¹⁵ He also worked as executive director for the Campaign for Youth Justice, an advocacy group that seeks to end the practice of trying, sentencing, and incarcerating children under the age of 18 in the adult justice system. ¹⁵

Henderson Hill is the board president of The Sentencing Project. ¹ Hill is senior counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a left-leaning activist organization. ¹⁶ He represents the ACLU’s Capital Punishment Project, a capital punishment abolition and reform initiative. ¹⁶ Hill was a founder and senior staffer for several death penalty abolition organizations, including the 8th Amendment Project and the Center for Death Penalty Litigation. ¹⁶ He also worked for the Proteus Project, a center-left “pass-through” funder and donor-advised fund provider. ⁶

Hill has donated to campaign organizations of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). ⁶ He also gave to MoveOn.Org Political Action, a left-leaning political organizing group, and Obama For America, the 2012 reelection campaign of President Barack Obama. ⁶

Kara Gotsch is the executive director of The Sentencing Project. ¹⁷ She was a staffer for the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and the ACLU. ¹⁷

Alexandra Bailey is the senior campaign strategist for the organization. ¹⁸ Prior to the project, she staffed for the ACLU and the Women’s March. ¹⁸

Mark MacDougall is the treasurer of the organization’s board. ¹ He is a partner at Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer, and Feld LLP, a Washington, D.C.-based law and lobbying firm. ¹⁹ MacDougall donated to Biden For President and the Biden Victory Fund, fundraising arms of Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign. ²⁰

Michael Blake is a board member. ¹ He worked as the vice president of finance for the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, a private foundation that provides grants to left-of-center activist groups. ⁷

Cynthia Jones is a board member and former board president. ²¹ She is a senior staffer for the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, a government sponsored legal defense organization, and the D.C. Pretrial Services Agency, a federal agency responsible for collecting information on criminal defendants. ²¹ Jones was also a board chair for the Civil Rights Corps, a nonprofit organization that advocates for prison and criminal justice policies. ²²